Intrada Soundtrack Forum

Hi Doc, please could Intrada offer hi-res (at least 1000x1000) cover art. If possible, could a link be provided to a repository with legacy releases covers as well. Many thanks.

Any chance of this happening? I've noticed that every now and then Creature Features has high-res art for the odd Intrada release on their site.

Is there possibly a legal issue preventing this (such as piracy concerns)?

I don't get it either. 500x500 or 600x600 is perfectly fine for any digital music device like an iPod, or any smartphone. In fact my iPod nano doesn't even do all the 500x500 for some reason.

I too would be interested in hi-rez art. It's nice for my cover flow in iTunes on my Mac.

LLL does usually put out 1500x1500 I think...even further in the past it was regularly 900x900 or more.

And for a brief period of time, Intrada/FSM/LLL designer Joe Sikoryak did regularly upload 1400x1400 and 1500x1500 covers to Album Art Exchange from his own original files, so you may find some Intrada title covers you're looking for there:
https://www.albumartexchange.com/covers ... r=UPLOADER

Between the three labels, 99 covers in all!

Yaar

1500x1500 is the current standard for more popular releases. 600x600 was the standard for many years in the past. 600x600 works plenty fine for me on my media player (foobar2000), and higher resolution cover art doesn't make the music sound any better.

One thing I would like to see more of from all labels is a full suite of covers for sets such as the recent Waxman compilation, which is just an example as covers for that set were thankfully handled by a talented member of the FSM forum.

I never listen to music on my computer so I honestly didn't even think of a large cover being good for a music player like iTunes. I just use it to transfer from disc to iPod.

A lot of Intrada cover art is fantastic, specially also if it comes from a nice, awesome poster. I second the idea of bigger cover art. I know how annoying it must be to Intrada, probably also bandwith they don't need. But it's not necessary to upload HQ covers of ALL their catalogue. Could start with the future and upgrade old covers whenever.

I'd love to see a larger resolution for images, as well. I often airplay my music to Apple TV and the artwork (on a 4K 65 inch TV) can suffer if it's too small. Plus, it's nice to be able to archive these beautiful covers when ripping and storing CDs.

Any idea when the new larger format artwork will start arriving, Doc?

Also, will the whole Intrada catalogue benefit from upgraded artwork (presumably the digital files are already in a larger resolution for printing) or only the current titles going forward?

Thanks for the feedback.

Could you not provide hi-res art for the new titles going forward (say, starting with next week's Rambo III, which sounds like it will have amazing art) and then tackle the older titles when the schedule allows?

I understand the desire to have higher resolution artwork from the standpoint of one who appreciates art. Art is art, whether it's music or canvas (or computer screen), and higher resolution reproductions of any art is always desirable. It allows for a deeper appreciation by homing in on minute details, or the discovery of new details that are obscured with lower resolution reproductions. Either way, it's something every serious aficionado wants. Think about the extent to which many die hard music lovers go to in order to listen to high quality music that is exactly how it was recorded, whether digital or analog. Art is art.

For fans, higher resolution cover art does the same thing but to a lesser extent. Many music collections by fans are often done in a way as to show that they have "the best" collection, and fans go to some extremes to make sure they have it. It's part of collecting. Many fans refuse to use mp3 or m4a file formats and insist on lossless file formats such as flac so that no information is lost in the audio... even if they don't have an audio system that can reproduce the minute details of the recording. They just like it. They like the idea of having high quality stuff. Having high resolution artwork, even for CD covers, follows the same line of thought.

With the newer high resolution computer screens, lower resolution images are either blurred or very, very small. Either way, it's not particularly nice to see. Certainly not great for showing others. Different devices have different resolution screens and different requirements for graphics, whether it's a phone, tablet, or computer. As higher resolution screens become the norm, higher resolution graphics will be necessary. It's just the way technology is, Doc. It won't be long before 1400x1400 at 72 dpi is the norm. Maybe 2-5 years?

Apple's 2018 guidelines for podcast cover art, for example, is a minimum of 1400x1400 and a maximum of 3000x3000. You can actually download high resolution artwork from iTunes, although it's not easily accessible by the average person. Downloadable high resolution album artwork from iTunes varies widely and can be anywhere from 1400x1400 to 2400x2400, with very strange resolutions in between like 1425x1425 popping up. I imagine it can go all the way up to 3000x3000, but I haven't seen any at that resolution yet. Amazon requires images of a minimum of 1000x1000. For e-books, Amazon requires a minimum image size of 1,000 x 625 pixels. The maximum image size allowed is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels, and the preferred size is 2,560 x 1,600 pixels.

Over the years, I've heard of people refusing to accept any cover art less than 2500x2500 pixels. Some people I know prefer 1500x1500. I've seen collections containing 1000x1000 and 1400x1400. Others are happy with 600x600. Believe it or not, I've even seen collections using 300x300 (which even I refuse to use). It depends on the person.

iTunes has standardized on 600x600. For many years, album artwork resolutions fluctuated depending on what program you used, and there was no consensus on what resolution should be used. However, Apple is such a powerhouse, and so popular, that most of the industry has just followed suit. I also recall that iTunes crashed a lot if you used high resolution cover art in the past. I don't think that's the case now, at least not for music album art. Personally, since Apple is still using 600x600 as it's standard, I know that Apple's software will be designed to primarily handle that file size and I don't want to risk any problems with software crashing. These days I just want the stuff to work.

So, there are definitely sensible reasons for why people would want higher resolution cover art. Although I've standardized on 600x600, I have to fight the desire to grab higher resolution artwork too. Sometimes I do, just so I can have it... just in case I might need it. I often re-size my artwork, and when you're doing that, it's way, way better to start with a higher resolution image and shrink it down than the opposite. So it's nice to have.

I agree with you though, Doc. Even though resizing an image is easy and fast, doing that for the thousands of CDs in your collection and adding them to the web site is a LOT of work. However, re-sizing an image at the time of creation is pretty fast. It takes maybe 5 clicks to create a different sized image. Adding that higher resolution image to the web site at the same time as the standard image is also fast and easy. Until Apple changes its standard, I appreciate that there are 600x600 images on the Intrada web site. However, if you are thinking of adding a higher resolution image, I'd probably recommend 1400x1400, as I would bet that it will be the new standard in a few years.